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washington — White House press secretary Karoline Levitt announced Friday that President Donald Trump would be implementing 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods and a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports on Saturday.  

Consumers told VOA they were bracing for the possible impact of increased costs. 

“I’m concerned about rising prices,” Yon Bui, a student of music and computer science at Middlebury College in Vermont, said in an interview Thursday. 

Bui said that while it might still be too early to tell what the impact could be, she has been considering purchasing costly items, such as expensive cosmetics that she buys sometimes, from China. She also said she needed a new phone. 

Bui said she would “buy products now before they go up in price to a point where they’d become unaffordable.”  

Sean Liu, who lives in Virginia, told VOA that he was glad he’d recently decided to buy a new phone and car.

“With things that are already really expensive, if you add another 10% to their price – it’s not like, say, buying a thermos and adding another 10% – this kind of price hike is truly big,” he said.  

He did add, though, that it might be a little easier to deal with if the tariffs came alongside lower prices for more basic necessities like groceries and gas.

‘One very big power’

On the campaign trail, Trump threatened tariffs as high as 60% on China. Since taking office, those threats have expanded and include everything from a universal tariff to threats against trade partners and rivals such as China and Russia.

Last week, Trump threatened Colombia with tariffs of 25% to 50% to get Bogota to accept deportation flights.

On China, Trump recently told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that tariffs were the “one very big power” the U.S. has over China.  

“They don’t want them, and I’d rather not have to use it,” Trump said.  

The 10% tariff on all Chinese imports is part of what Trump says is a punitive response to China’s role in manufacturing precursor chemicals essential to fentanyl production in Mexico.

Currently, the United States targets China with a 100% tariff on electric vehicles, a 50% tariff on solar cells and semiconductors, a 25% tariff on critical minerals needed to make certain advanced batteries and a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum.

New tariffs would build on more than $300 billion worth of taxes on Chinese imports that Trump imposed during his first term. Those tariffs were upheld and, in some cases, advanced under former President Joe Biden. 

Who will feel impact? 

Some analysts question who will be hurt if these tariffs are implemented. Some say the deep economic ties between China and the United States could mean that American consumers will be the ones bearing the brunt of Trump’s punishment on Beijing. 

Supporters, however, see the move as a fulfillment of Trump’s promise to put American lives and livelihoods first — particularly when it comes to stopping the flow of fentanyl into the country.   

According to William Reinsch, senior adviser of the economics program and Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the tariff likely would raise prices of goods in America. 

“The prices on a lot of things that people buy at retail — apparel, footwear, household goods – things like that will be affected. Ten percent is not huge, but it’s not zero either,” Reinsch said. 

Costs and benefits 

Trump has pushed back against the argument that tariffs drive inflation higher and said instead that tariffs would make America rich. 

Liu Longzhu, a California lawyer and delegate at the 2024 Republican National Convention, sees tariffs as the key to recovering America’s economic strength. 

“The main purpose of increasing tariffs is to assure that America is truly ‘America First’ and protect American jobs. If you are looking for a job, they are beneficial to you. If the tariffs are increased, Chinese products will lose their competitiveness, and American products will become more competitive. This will make it easier for Americans to find jobs,” Liu said. 

James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas at Austin, doesn’t see tariffs as inherently inflationary, and he agrees that tariffs would bring back jobs that were lost to overseas companies. 

“A tariff strategy can be implemented in such a way that the cost largely falls outside of the country,” Galbraith told VOA. 

But Stephen Lamar, president and CEO at the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said that tariffs, especially those levied on China, will ultimately raise the cost of both domestic and foreign goods given the interconnectivity of global economies. 

“The theory on paper is that you’re giving domestic producers an advantage. The reality in practice is that more people are paying higher prices for products, regardless of their source,” Lamar told VOA.  

Reinsch also cast doubt on the ability of tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to America, particularly in labor-intensive sectors like apparel or footwear. 

“I would be surprised if you see a renaissance in the American apparel industry as a result of a 10% tariff. It would take a lot more than that,” Reinsch said, adding that tariffs don’t guarantee a move away from imports and toward domestic manufacturing. 

Importers looking for cheap products can still source from countries in Southeast Asia or Africa that provide competitive, low-cost alternatives to Chinese products. 
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Українські підрозділи також відбили 10 російських атак на Торецькому напрямку, поблизу Торецька
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The Trump administration has confirmed that the deportation of Chinese nationals is still underway as part of a broader effort to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

In an emailed response to VOA this week, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official wrote that the agency is removing from the United States any immigrant who is here unlawfully.

“ICE continues to conduct removals to the People’s Republic of China. Due to operational security, ICE does not confirm future removal operations until deportees have been returned to their country of origin,” the ICE official said Tuesday, speaking on background, a method often used by U.S. officials to remain anonymous.

VOA requested the most recent removal numbers for China and an update on deportation flights, but as of Friday, ICE had yet to respond.

Deportations have increased as China signals a greater willingness to repatriate its citizens, a departure from its historically restrictive stance. Large repatriation flights resumed last June, the first since 2018.

On Jan. 6, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, through ICE, conducted the Biden administration’s fifth removal flight to China in less than seven months.

“These [Biden administration] flights were the product of sustained cooperation between the Department and PRC counterparts to repatriate individuals who have not established a legal basis to remain in the United States,” DHS said in a statement on Jan. 10.

Fast-track deportations

Under the Trump administration, the approach is shifting toward making deportations faster and bypassing judicial review.

The Trump administration issued an executive order on Jan. 21 to expand expedited removal, also known as fast-track deportations, to include immigrants who cannot prove they have been continuously living in the United States for more than two years.

“The effect of this change will be to enhance national security and public safety — while reducing government costs — by facilitating prompt immigration determinations,” the notice read.

Expedited removal allows the U.S. government to quickly deport people who are undocumented. Under the process of expedited removal, some noncitizens can be deported in a single day without an immigration court hearing or other appearance before a judge.

ICE data from November showed 37,908 Chinese nationals who were believed to be removable from the United States but had not yet been detained. December and January numbers are not yet available.

On Jan. 22, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Trump administration over the expansion of expedited removal.

The ACLU argued in court documents that the new rule violates federal law and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause by effectively eliminating full court hearings that immigrants are entitled to receive.

The organization also cited studies indicating that expedited removals are prone to errors, often leading to the mistaken deportation of immigrants.

Joanna Derman, a program director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, told VOA that advocates are worried the Trump administration will use “extreme options” to specifically target Chinese nationals for deportation, “especially in the event of a significant escalation between the United States and China.”

“But on the other hand,” she said, “we’re also rapidly mobilizing right now. … We are uplifting resources for people who are the most likely to be impacted. The most vulnerable folks need to know what to do if [or] when ICE shows up at their school, their work or their place of worship.”

US-China repatriation cooperation

For years, China has been among the countries that refused or delayed accepting deportees, complicating U.S. efforts to remove individuals with final orders.

Countries that do not negotiate or refuse to accept their nationals back are deemed “recalcitrant” or “uncooperative.” Recalcitrant countries do not accept their nationals back. Uncooperative countries will accept some of their nationals back.

According to an ICE official and a DHS removal operations document, 15 countries were deemed to be uncooperative: Bhutan, Burma, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Laos, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Somalia and Venezuela.

ICE considers these to be at risk of recalcitrant: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Gabon, Gambia, Iraq, Jamaica, Nicaragua, South Sudan, St. Lucia and Vietnam.

During a Monday press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning was asked if Beijing intended to accept all Chinese nationals in the U.S. illegally.

“I’d refer you to competent authorities for anything specific,” she said. “Let me say more broadly that the Chinese government firmly opposes any form of illegal migration. We have conducted practical cooperation with the migration and law enforcement departments of the U.S. and other countries, which has been productive. As far as repatriation is concerned, China’s principle is to receive the repatriates who are confirmed as Chinese nationals from the Chinese mainland after verification.”

ICE’s deportation numbers reflect U.S. diplomatic efforts with China, with DHS reporting the removal of 109 Chinese nationals on the latest charter flight as of November, following 131 deportations in October and 116 in June.

According to DHS, the Biden administration’s increase in deportations matches China’s work to decrease illegal immigration, which has led to a 62% decline in Chinese migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border. Apprehensions of Chinese dropped from 2,198 encounters in June 2024 to 873 in December 2024.

January numbers are not yet available.

Deportation logistics, cost

An ICE official confirmed to VOA by email in late December that the U.S. government buys the commercial airline tickets for deportees, working closely with a travel service provider to book the most cost-effective flights.

ICE determines whether to use charter or commercial flights based on operational needs. ICE did not share cost per person for either type of flight.

But the American Immigration Council estimates that removing 1 million people a year would cost U.S. taxpayers about $88 billion, with the total over a decade approaching $1 trillion.

Despite Beijing’s increased cooperation, China remains one of several nations that usually refuse to take back their citizens or delay repatriations.

During the 2024 fiscal year, ICE removed 517 Chinese nationals from the United States.

Deportation process

In immigration court, deportation orders are usually issued after a foreign national violates the terms of a visa, is found to be undocumented or is convicted of a crime.

When the United States seeks to deport an immigrant, it generally follows a framework negotiated with the other nation; these frameworks are often detailed in writing, through a memorandum of understanding.

Before the United States can deport someone, the other country must agree to receive the deportee. There must also be an administratively final order of removal, or deportation order, and the individual must have a travel document issued by a foreign government.
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Інші країни готові працювати з Україною для інвестицій у збройне виробництво, заявив президент
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell is expected to meet with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Friday in Venezuela, according to U.S. Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone.

Trump said last week his administration likely would stop buying oil from Venezuela and was looking “very strongly” at the South American country.

Grenell, Trump’s envoy for special missions, had earlier said he spoke with multiple officials in Venezuela and would begin meetings, days after the outgoing Biden administration imposed new sanctions on the government of Maduro.

“Diplomacy is back,” Grenell said in a post on social media platform X disclosing his initial calls. “Talking is a tactic.”

During his campaign, Trump called Maduro a dictator after he pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against him during his first term, from 2017 to 2021, including imposing harsh sanctions on the South American country and its oil industry.

Former President Joe Biden briefly rolled back some of the Trump-era restrictions following electoral promises from Maduro but then reinstated them, saying the Venezuelan leader had reneged on pledges for a fair democratic vote.

The Financial Times reported Friday that Chevron is trying to protect the special U.S. license allowing it to operate in Venezuela.

The oil giant’s chief executive, Mike Wirth, told the newspaper the company would engage with the White House after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the license should be reconsidered.

If Chevron is forced out, China and Russia will gain influence in the OPEC nation, Wirth said.

Venezuela’s oil exports to the U.S. soared 64% to some 222,000 barrels per day last year, making the United States its second-largest export market behind China, which took 351,000 bpd, down 18% compared with the previous year.
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Стрічка отримала нагороду «Режисура: Світове документальне кіно»
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WASHINGTON — On the front lines of the war in Ukraine, local newspapers are vital lifelines in areas where Russia has destroyed cell towers and internet infrastructure.

Journalists provide information about evacuation routes, document alleged Russian war crimes and troop movements, and counter Moscow’s propaganda.

Even a temporary freeze of U.S. foreign aid can mean financial difficulties for small media organizations that rely on outside donors to keep working.

“Many Ukrainian media may now face the threat of closure or significant reduction in operations in the coming weeks,” Sergiy Tomilenko, president of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, told VOA.

Ukraine is not alone.

News outlets on the front lines of war and authoritarianism from Ukraine and Belarus to Myanmar are among the organizations affected by a freeze on U.S. foreign aid.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20 mandating all federal government agencies pause all foreign development assistance for 90 days.

The directive took effect on Jan. 24 and includes foreign funding from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

“Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Jan. 26 statement. “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”

Worldwide impact

Many independent news outlets around the world rely on State Department and USAID funding because they report in repressive environments, according to the JX Fund, a Berlin-based group that supports exiled media.

With the current freeze, news outlets around the world are scrambling to find alternative sources of funding in an attempt to continue delivering the news to their audiences and avoid shutting down, multiple analysts told VOA.

“The general feeling is panic. Panic is the only way to describe the situation,” Karol Luczka, who works in Eastern Europe at the International Press Institute in Vienna, told VOA.

JX Fund managing director Penelope Winterhager agreed. These outlets “are thrown back to emergency mode,” she said.

The measure is estimated to be affecting dozens of independent news outlets in more than 30 countries, according to the Brussels-based European Federation of Journalists, or EFJ.

Maja Sever, EFJ president, called on potential donors to fill the gap.

“The European Union and other donors cannot abandon to their fate journalists who are the best bulwark for defending the rule of law and democracy in countries where they are under threat,” Sever said in a statement Tuesday.

During the 90-day pause, relevant U.S. departments and agencies are required to review their foreign funding and determine whether the aid will continue, be modified or cease altogether, according to the executive order.

The State Department did not respond to specific questions and referred VOA to a Wednesday press release.

“Americans are a hardworking and generous people, who have sacrificed their blood and treasure to help their fellow man across the globe. But no foreign nation is entitled to those benefits, and no foreign aid program is above scrutiny,” the statement said.

USAID did not reply to VOA’s request for comment.

In Ukraine

Tomilenko said the aid freeze is creating a dire situation for Ukrainian news outlets on the front line of the war.

“In many areas close to the battle lines, local newspapers are often the only reliable source of information,” said Tomilenko, who is based in Kyiv.

Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has ramped up global propaganda efforts while further restricting independent media inside Russia.

The war has also limited the advertising market in Ukraine, which would ideally be a primary source of financial independence for Ukrainian news outlets, said Tomilenko.

The USAID website says it supports programs that “promote free and independent media” in more than 30 countries. VOA could not determine how much U.S. aid goes to support media outlets in these countries.

In the case of Ukraine, Luczka said, “The previous administration in the U.S. saw the importance of supporting civil society in Ukraine in order to make sure that this country keeps standing.”

The United States has been the strongest player when it came to supporting independent media outlets, according to the JX Fund’s Winterhager.

But even though these outlets receive foreign funding, Winterhager emphasized that “their reporting is independent.”

In Myanmar

Several Myanmar news outlets that rely on financial support from USAID and Internews also find themselves in a precarious situation. Internews is a USAID-affiliated nonprofit that supports independent media.

After launching a coup in 2021, Myanmar’s military arrested journalists and banned news outlets. The crackdown forced entire outlets to flee into exile.

Some outlets now report from the Thai-Myanmar border, while others manage to operate from rebel-controlled regions of Myanmar.

Funding has been among the biggest problems for Myanmar media since the coup.

“It is difficult — or even impossible — for many of them to make commercial revenue in this environment,” Ben Dunant, editor-in-chief of the magazine Frontier Myanmar, told VOA last year. “This underlines the vulnerability of these media organizations whose operations are dependent on the whims of donors in faraway countries.”

Mizzima, one of the most prominent of the country’s news outlets and an affiliate of VOA, is among those affected by the aid freeze, according to local media reports.

Founded in exile in 1998, the media outlet covers news on the resistance against the junta and China’s growing influence in the region.

Another outlet, Western News, has already cut staff, according to its chief editor, Wunna Khwar Nyo.

“We are struggling to survive,” Wunna Khwar Nyo told VOA. “Ultimately, this will also hurt the Burmese people.”

If the funding freeze forces news outlets to shutter, the IPI’s Luczka warned that state-backed propaganda from countries such as Russia could fill the gap.

“When media outlets disappear, they create a void,” Luczka said. “And that void needs to be filled by something.”

VOA’s Burmese Service contributed to this report.
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Україна подала позов до суду ООН 26 лютого 2022-го зі скаргою, що РФ зловживає конвенцією про запобігання геноциду для виправдання вторгнення
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — When Chinese startup DeepSeek released its AI model this month, it was hailed as a breakthrough, a sign that China’s artificial intelligence companies could compete with their Silicon Valley counterparts using fewer resources.

The narrative was clear: DeepSeek had done more with less, finding clever workarounds to U.S. chip restrictions. However, that storyline has begun to shift.

OpenAI, the U.S.-based company behind ChatGPT, now claims DeepSeek may have improperly used its proprietary data to train its model, raising questions about whether DeepSeek’s success was truly an engineering marvel.

In statements to several media outlets this week, OpenAI said it is reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have trained its AI by mimicking responses from OpenAI’s models.

The process, known as distillation, is common among AI developers but is prohibited by OpenAI’s terms of service, which forbid using its model outputs to train competing systems.

Some U.S. officials appear to support OpenAI’s concerns. At his confirmation hearing this week, Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick accused DeepSeek of misusing U.S. technology to create a “dirt cheap” AI model.

“They stole things. They broke in. They’ve taken our IP,” Lutnick said of China.

David Sacks, the White House czar for AI and cryptocurrency, was more measured, saying only that it is “possible” that DeepSeek had stolen U.S. intellectual property.

In an interview with the cable news network Fox News, Sacks added that there is “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek “distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models,” adding that stronger efforts are needed to curb the rise of “copycat” AI systems.

At the center of the dispute is a key question about AI’s future: how much control should companies have over their own AI models, when those programs were themselves built using data taken from others?

AI data fight

The question is especially relevant for OpenAI, which faces its own legal challenges. The company has been sued by several media companies and authors who accuse it of illegally using copyrighted material to train its AI models.

Justin Hughes, a Loyola Law School professor specializing in intellectual property, AI, and data rights, said OpenAI’s accusations against DeepSeek are “deeply ironic,” given the company’s own legal troubles.

“OpenAI has had no problem taking everyone else’s content and claiming it’s ‘fair,'” Hughes told VOA in an email.

“If the reports are accurate that OpenAI violated other platforms’ terms of service to get the training data it has wanted, that would just add an extra layer of irony – dare we say hypocrisy – to OpenAI complaining about DeepSeek.”

DeepSeek has not responded to OpenAI’s accusations. In a technical paper released with its new chatbot, DeepSeek acknowledged that some of its models were trained alongside other open-source models – such as Qwen, developed by China’s Alibaba, and Llama, released by Meta – according to Johnny Zou, a Hong Kong-based AI investment specialist.

However, OpenAI appears to be alleging that DeepSeek improperly used its closed-source models – which cannot be freely accessed or used to train other AI systems.

“It’s quite a serious statement,” said Zou, who noted that OpenAI has not yet presented evidence of wrongdoing by DeepSeek.

Proving improper distillation may be difficult without disclosing details on how its own models were trained, Zou added.

Even if OpenAI presents concrete proof, its legal options may be limited. Although Zou noted that the company could pursue a case against DeepSeek for violating its terms of service, not all experts believe such a claim would hold up in court.

“Even assuming DeepSeek trained on OpenAI’s data, I don’t think OpenAI has much of a case,” said Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in intellectual property and technology.

Even though AI models often have restrictive terms of service, “no model creator has actually tried to enforce these terms with monetary penalties or injunctive relief,” Lemley wrote in a recent paper with co-author Peter Henderson.

The paper argues that these restrictions may be unenforceable, since the materials they aim to protect are “largely not copyrightable.”

“There are compelling reasons for many of these provisions to be unenforceable: they chill good faith research, constrain competition, and create quasi-copyright ownership where none should exist,” the paper noted.

OpenAI’s main legal argument would likely be breach of contract, said Hughes. Even if that were the case, though, he added, “good luck enforcing that against a Chinese company without meaningful assets in the United States.”

Possible options

The financial stakes are adding urgency to the debate. U.S. tech stocks dipped Monday after following news of DeepSeek’s advances, though they later regained some ground.

Commerce nominee Lutnick suggested that further government action, including tariffs, could be used to deter China from copying advanced AI models.

But speaking the same day, U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to take a different view, surprising some industry insiders with an optimistic take on DeepSeek’s breakthrough.

The Chinese company’s low-cost model, Trump said, was “very much a positive development” for AI, because “instead of spending billions and billions, you’ll spend less, and you’ll come up with hopefully the same solution.”

If DeepSeek has succeeded in building a relatively cheap and competitive AI model, that may be bad for those with investment – or stock options – in current generative AI companies, Hughes said.

“But it might be good for the rest of us,” he added, noting that until recently it appeared that only the existing tech giants “had the resources to play in the generative AI sandbox.”

“If DeepSeek disproved that, we should hope that what can be done by a team of engineers in China can be done by a similarly resourced team of engineers in Detroit or Denver or Boston,” he said. 
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white house — Arms control advocates are hoping U.S. President Donald Trump’s fresh words of support for denuclearization will lead to talks with Russia and China on arms reduction.

U.S. negotiations with the Russians and Chinese on denuclearization and eventual agreements are “very possible,” according to Trump, who addressed the World Economic Forum a week ago in Davos, Switzerland.

“Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear [weapons], and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about because you don’t want to hear,” he said. “It’s too depressing.”

Trump noted that in his first term, he discussed the topic with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We were talking about denuclearization of our two countries, and China would have come along,” according to Trump. “President Putin really liked the idea of cutting back on nuclear [armaments], and I think the rest of the world — we would have gotten them to follow.”

Just months before leaving office, former U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in Peru where both agreed that decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons should remain under human control. That consensus was seen as a positive step after the Chinese, four months previously, suspended nuclear arms control talks with Washington to protest American arms sales to Taiwan.

The horror of nuclear attacks first became evident to many in the world through magazines in the West, which printed photographs of the radiation-burned survivors of the U.S. atomic attack on two Japanese cities in 1945 to end World War II. In subsequent years during the Cold War, U.S. government films captured the destructive force of test detonations in the Nevada desert, eventually prompting public demonstrations to “ban the bomb” and diplomacy to reduce or eliminate all nuclear weapons.

A major breakthrough occurred in 1987 with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between the United States and the Soviet Union. It entered into full force the following year. By 1991, nearly 2,700 missiles had been dismantled. That was the first time the two nuclear superpowers achieved a reduction of such weapons rather than just limiting their growth.

Over the years, the Americans and the Russians lost their monopoly on nuclear weapons. Nine countries presently have nuclear arsenals, although Israel has never acknowledged possession of such weaponry.

The United States and Russia each have more than 5,000 nuclear warheads — 90% of the world’s total. The combined global force of all countries’ nuclear weapons could destroy the world many times over, according to arms control advocates.

The current New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, set limits on the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems, while including on-site inspection and exchanges of data for verification.

The treaty expires in early February 2026, which adds urgency to Trump’s call for talks with Russia and China, according to Xiaodon Liang, senior analyst for nuclear weapons policy and disarmament at the Arms Control Association.

“And because of that, this issue has to be at the top of the agenda, and having a signal that the president is concerned about this issue and thinking about it is very positive,” Liang told VOA.

Since a formal, comprehensive agreement could take years to negotiate — possibly spanning beyond the four years of the second Trump presidency — Liang suggests the U.S. president consider an “executive agreement” with Putin, an informal consensus or a series of unilateral steps to continue adhering to the numbers in New START for an indefinite period.

“That would be a stabilizing factor in this important bilateral relationship,” Liang added.

There are analysts who advocate a more aggressive tactic.

Trump should consider ordering a resumption of nuclear testing to demonstrate to America’s adversaries that the U.S. arsenal of weapons of mass destruction remains viable and as an act of resolve, writes Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank seen as having a dominant influence on Trump administration policies.

Peters also suggests that Trump might want to withdraw from the 1963 Test Ban Treaty made with Moscow and “conduct an above-ground test either at the Nevada National Security Site or in the Pacific Ocean over open water, where nuclear fallout can be minimized” to stave escalatory moves by an adversary to the United States.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to multiple requests from VOA to interview Peters.

Moscow is not known to have conducted any sort of test causing a nuclear chain reaction, known as criticality, since 1990. Two years later, the United States announced it would no longer test nuclear weapons, although subcritical simulations continue. The other nuclear nations have followed suit except North Korea, which last triggered a nuclear test explosion in 2017.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday moved up the hands of its “Doomsday Clock” by one second to 89 seconds to midnight, meant to signify the peril from weapons of mass destruction and other existential threats.

“We set the clock closer to midnight because we do not see positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats and advances in disruptive technology,” said Daniel Holz, a physics professor at the University of Chicago, just after the hands of this year’s clock were unveiled at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

While the Doomsday Clock is merely symbolic, Liang at the Arms Control Association sees it as an annual important ritual highlighting the risks to Americans and everyone else posed by the world’s nuclear arsenals.

“It is a good tool for bringing this to more people’s attention, and you can’t blame Americans for having so many other issues on their plate. And having this [clock] as a reminder, I think, is an effective communications tool,” Liang said.

At the Doomsday Clock ceremony, VOA asked former Colombian President and Nobel laureate Juan Manuel Santos what he viewed as the biggest hurdle to Trump, Putin and Xi making progress on denuclearization.

“The biggest challenge, in my view, is for them to understand that they should sit down and talk about how the three of them can take decisions to save their own countries and the whole world,” he said.

Liang compared the situation to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s call to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which led Washington and Moscow to pull back from the brink of nuclear war.

That resolution turned the hands of the Doomsday Clock the following year back to 12 minutes to midnight in recognition of the Americans, Soviets and British banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in space and under water.

It has been several years since the United States engaged in any denuclearization negotiations. Those working-level talks in 2019 in Sweden between the first Trump administration and North Korean officials did not yield any agreement, with Pyongyang’s chief negotiator, Kim Myong Gil, telling reporters that the Americans had raised expectations with promises of flexibility but would not “give up their old viewpoint and attitude.”

The State Department spokesperson at the time, Morgan Ortagus, said in a statement the two countries could not be expected to “overcome a legacy of 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean Peninsula in the course of a single Saturday,” but such weighty issues “require a strong commitment by both countries. The United States has that commitment.”
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Arms control advocates are hoping U.S. President Donald Trump’s fresh words of support for denuclearization will lead to talks with Russia and China about nuclear arms reduction. VOA’s chief national correspondent, Steve Herman, reports from the White House in Washington.
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A collision between a passenger jet and U.S. Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport late Wednesday marked the first time in more than 15 years that there had been a mass fatality event in U.S. airspace related to commercial aviation.

The accident, which killed a reported 67 people, took place while American Airlines Flight 5342 was making its final approach to the runway. The Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet and the Sikorsky H-60, commonly known as a Black Hawk, collided only a few hundred meters above the ground, officials said.

The plane was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members. There were three service members aboard the military helicopter, including the pilot. Both aircraft crashed into the icy waters of the Potomac River, and authorities said Thursday that they didn’t believe there were any survivors.

The accident took place in darkness at 8:47 p.m., and no significant weather problems were reported. As of Thursday, authorities had not identified the cause of the accident.

However, The New York Times on Thursday, citing an “internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report” it reviewed, reported that staffing at the airport’s air traffic control tower was “not normal” Wednesday night. The newspaper said a single air traffic controller was directing incoming and outgoing plane traffic as well as helicopter traffic in the area. Those jobs are usually split between two controllers.

Experts consider crash an anomaly

Aviation experts said as tragic as the accident was, it should be considered an anomaly in an air traffic system that has been notably free of major disasters for many years.

“Some of it was luck. Some of it is technology. And mostly it was the tremendous job that the pilots and air traffic controllers do,” former United Airlines pilot Captain Ross “Rusty” Aimer told VOA.

“They literally perform miracles every day because our system is extremely congested everywhere you go. … And Washington National Airport is, perhaps in my 60 years in aviation, one of the most demanding and busiest airports in the world.”

It is necessary to look back to 2009 to find a comparable commercial disaster in U.S. airspace. At that time, a Colgan Air jet en route from New Jersey to Buffalo, New York, stalled during its approach and crashed into a house, killing 49 passengers and crew, as well as one individual in the house.

In 2013, an Asiana Airlines jet crashed while landing in San Francisco, California. Two passengers who were not wearing seat belts were killed when they were thrown from the plane, and another person died after being struck by an emergency response vehicle on the tarmac. There were 187 other people who suffered injuries, many serious, but no other fatalities.

While there have been a number of other high-profile incidents involving U.S. airlines recently, none involved mass casualties. Last year, for example, a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max in midflight, but the plane landed safely, though some passengers suffered minor injuries.

Experts stressed that such events occur in only a tiny fraction of the millions of flights that take place in the U.S. every year.

Robert W. Mann Jr., an airline industry analyst and former senior airline executive, told VOA that the U.S. commercial aviation industry experiences an extremely low level of safety incidents and “an even lower level of fatality accidents.”

“That’s not luck, that’s effort,” he said. “We’re thankful to have so many professionals in the operating environment. In the oversight environment, focus on safety is the number one priority.”

Crash occurs in crowded airspace

The accident took place in one of the most crowded — and highly regulated — sectors of airspace in the United States. The Washington region has three major airports, 11 regional airports and dozens of heliports — not counting the multiple military installations in the region with aviation operations.

Keith M. Cianfrani, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who served as a flight instructor and an accident investigator, told VOA he flew helicopters in the area where the accident took place while on active duty and later as a commercial pilot.

“It’s congested,” said Cianfrani, who now works as an aviation safety consultant and adjunct professor at Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University. “So, it’s not unusual to cross the path of an incoming [plane] as long as there is traffic separation.”

Traffic separation refers to the distance, in time and space, between aircraft in the same area.

But because of the congestion, there are very clear rules about where aircraft are allowed to be and when they can be there, Cianfrani said. Helicopters are required to follow specific routes when passing through the region, he said, calling it “very uncommon” to see something like Wednesday’s crash take place.

“As a whole, the general aviation industry in the United States is outstanding,” he said. “They all have to adhere to what we call SMS — safety management systems. On a regular basis, they get audited. They have an internal audit program, and they’re constantly being looked at by people like myself going in and auditing their safety program. So, it’s outstanding.”

Turnover in federal aviation oversight

Wednesday’s accident took place at a time when leadership of the federal agencies in charge of flight safety is being overhauled by the new administration of President Donald Trump.

The day after his inauguration, Trump dismissed Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske and disbanded the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which provides the federal government with recommendations for aviation safety. He also initiated a hiring freeze, preventing the hiring of new air traffic controllers.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who oversees the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), was sworn in the day before the crash.

Michael Whitaker, who served as administrator of the FAA in former President Joe Biden’s administration, announced in December that he would resign his post on January 20, the day Trump took office.

The new president has not yet nominated a permanent replacement for Whitaker, but on Thursday he named Chris Rocheleau, a former Air Force officer who has spent more than 20 years at the FAA, as interim administrator.

Trump spreads blame

With recovery teams still searching for bodies in the Potomac River on Thursday, Trump held a press conference and attempted to pin blame for the accident on the previous presidential administration. He asserted, with no proof or evidence, that the Biden administration had lowered hiring standards for air traffic controllers as part of its “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts.

Trump took particular aim at former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, saying he had driven the agency “right into the ground with his diversity.”

Buttigieg responded with a post on the social media platform X.

“Despicable,” Buttigieg wrote. “As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.

“President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA,” he added. “One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”

Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
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washington — The White House says President Donald Trump is going to pursue the denuclearization of North Korea, although analysts say that is easier said than done.

White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told VOA Korean via email this week that “President Trump had a good relationship with [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un,” and that Trump’s “mix of toughness and diplomacy led to the first-ever leader-level commitment to complete denuclearization.”

Trump and Kim met three times in 2018-19, in Singapore, Hanoi and over the inter-Korean border at Panmunjom.

Trump, who has recently called North Korea “a nuclear power,” said in an interview with Fox News last week that he would reach out to Kim again, adding, “He liked me, and I got along with him.”

Commitment to denuclearization

Former U.S. government officials say there is no doubt that Trump is serious about resuming talks with Kim.

Susan Thornton, a former senior U.S. diplomat for Asian affairs, told VOA Korean on Wednesday via email it “seems clear that President Trump plans to pick up where he left off with Kim Jong Un in his first administration.” 

Thornton, who was acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the first Trump administration, said Trump would “like to hold Kim and North Korea to the 2018 Singapore joint statement that included Kim’s commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”  

However, “much has changed since then, and Kim’s hand is stronger, so it won’t be easy,” Thornton said, referring to Pyongyang’s development of more advanced weapons.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, reported Wednesday that Kim said it was “indispensable” to bolster nuclear forces, as North Korea continues to face “confrontations with the most vicious, hostile countries.”

Last Saturday, the North test-fired what it said were sea-to-surface strategic cruise-guided missiles. Kim, who inspected the test launch, said the country’s war deterrence means are “being perfected more thoroughly,” according to KCNA.

Evans Revere, former acting secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs during the George W. Bush administration, told VOA Korean on the phone Wednesday that Kim would agree to come back to the table if he believed reengaging with Washington “could help him attain any of his own goals with respect to his nuclear and missile programs and relations with the United States.”

Revere is skeptical that any of Kim’s goals would include his regime’s denuclearization.

“The North Koreans might dangle the possibility of a discussion about denuclearization to attract the United States into a dialogue, but it would not be a serious proposal,” he said. “Quite frankly, they are determined to keep their weapons, keep their capabilities, which they regard as essential to their own existence.”

Daunting task

Frank Aum, a senior expert on North Korea at the U.S. Institute of Peace who worked at the Department of Defense from 2010 to 2017, said denuclearization is not a realistic goal to achieve in the near or medium term. 

“The best thing Trump can do to increase the odds of North Korea’s engagement is to resolve Russia’s war in Ukraine, which would decrease North Korea’s leverage and signal that a U.S. offer better than the one in Hanoi might be on the table,” Aum said in an email to VOA Korean.

North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine. In return, North Korea has received military or financial assistance, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.

The February 2019 talks, in which Trump and Kim met for the second time, collapsed after Kim asked for full lifting of sanctions in exchange for the dismantling of the country’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, about 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang. Trump demanded more should be done on Kim’s end.

Aum said Kim would likely not have budged from his position then. 

“Trump may probe to see if he can get Kim to accept partial sanctions relief instead, like he tried at Hanoi, or offer more for Yongbyon,” Aum said. “It seems clear that Kim will not offer any more security concessions than Yongbyon.”

Sydney Seiler, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA Korean via email on Wednesday that “for now, it is unlikely any meeting, if it takes place, will reasonably be related to denuclearization.”

“Trump will likely seek to keep the ultimate goal of denuclearization alive while exploring ways in which to reduce the threat,” Seiler said.

Referring to recent comments by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the failure of sanctions to halt the North Korean nuclear program, Seiler speculated that sanctions relief may be offered for significant steps in the new talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

Seiler added that military exercises and extended deterrence may also be reduced in terms of their frequency, volume and scale, in exchange for a halt or slowing of Kim’s long-range missile launches and nuclear tests.

In June 2018, Trump decided to suspend major military exercises with South Korea in an apparent gesture of good faith, right after his first meeting with Kim in Singapore. It raised some fears among South Koreans that such a move could weaken defense against the North.
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Від початку доби на фронті, за даними командування, відбулося 125 бойових зіткнень
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Russian forces continue to attack Ukraine even as the Trump administration works to bring both sides to the negotiating table. While Ukraine is ready for peace talks, analysts see little evidence that Moscow is prepared to end the war. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from former Moscow correspondent Ricardo Marquina.
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As Los Angeles recovers from its devastating wildfires, environmental engineers, urban planners and natural disaster experts are casting forward with visions of what could come next for neighborhoods that have been reduced to ash and rubble.

Apartment buildings could spring up where strip malls and parking lots once stood, with locals walking to ground-floor shops, offices and cafes, European-style.

The city could “infill” vertically to add affordable housing in safer downtown areas, rather than outwards with more single-family homes on fire-prone hills.

Some blocks could be turned into buffer zones, where no building was allowed. And the city’s trademark palm trees, which burn like Roman candles, could be replaced with fire-resistant native trees.

These are some of the bold ideas academics have for Los Angeles as it recovers from the Eaton and Palisades fires, which killed 28 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 16,000 structures. Together, the blazes charred 152 square kilometers — an area larger than Paris.

The city is far from rebuilding, with many people only now being allowed back to their burned neighborhoods. When construction does begin, few of the dozen experts Reuters spoke to expected their dream plans to be adopted, citing factors ranging from lack of future insurance coverage to political pressure to rebuild as before.

Nonetheless, experts in urban development, climate change and housing said Los Angeles has a chance to think outside the box. Many also said there should be no rush to rebuild. Instead, residents of Pacific Palisades and Altadena should be afforded time to decide what their future communities should look like and dream big.

“The biggest thing is how do we promote infill development in safer areas,” said Emily Schlickman, assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental design at the University of California, Davis, who suggests retreating from fire-prone peripheries.

Model cities

Los Angeles could learn from cities like Kobe, Japan, decimated by a 1995 earthquake, where officials imposed a two-month building moratorium, said Columbia University’s Jeffrey Schlegelmilch.

“One of the most important things is to give yourself time to come up with a robust solution,” said Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the university’s climate school.

Then there are Houston’s Harris County and the city of San Antonio, Texas, which bought up homes and properties to reduce future flood risk. In the case of Harris County, authorities offered willing sellers pre-flood market values for homes flooded during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 then demolished them.

Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College in Claremont, California, is among those who point to Texas’ experience. While buying up properties in Pacific Palisades and Altadena would be costly, Miller said, it would be possible with the financial support of the city, county, state and possibly insurers.

Burned-out lots could be turned into what he envisions as fire buffer zones. While disruptive to residents, Miller believes many would be willing to use the money to relocate.

“People go, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to be in danger, and you’re buying me out. Yeah, thank you,'” said Miller.

He despairs at city and state efforts to fast-track redevelopment in areas that burned at a similar housing density.

“They just pulled the plug on the moonshot,” Miller said.

Alice Hill, a senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, wants to see more green spaces like playing fields and bike paths between fire-risk areas and homes.

“It simply is unsafe to rebuild communities where they were, and retreating may be the wisest approach,” Hill wrote in a Jan. 14 essay.

A little more panache

Other experts advocate rebuilding the communities but in a way that will resist fire.

“The only way to do this impactfully is to do it communitywide so if the fire gets in, it has a hard time moving on,” said Michael Gollner, a professor of mechanical engineering at University of California, Berkeley.

Gollner tests prototype houses to see how they handle flames. Homes can be made more fire-resistant by moving a wooden fence back five feet (1.5 meters), surrounding a house with gravel and putting mesh over attic vents to stop embers, he said.

Then there is landscaping, a contentious subject for some homeowners.

“Who wants to cut down their juniper? But come a wildfire, your juniper is a torch,” said Gollner.

Ecologists suggest Los Angelenos replace palms, junipers and eucalyptus with trees that evolved to survive fire, such as California oaks. The species has thick bark that resists flames and leathery leaves that burn slowly.

“There are lots of people who are working to plant oaks, and I think there’s some effort in giving them more panache,” said Alexandra Syphard, a San Diego-based wildfire ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute.

For Hussam Mahmoud, a professor in civil and environmental engineering at Colorado State University, the key is predicting the path of future fires.

He has developed a model that calculates which buildings will burn, allowing a community to fire-harden “super spreader” structures, rather than fully adapt every house to resist wildfires.

Hardening a home begins with using metal or concrete for a roof and fire-retardant materials on the sides. Multipane windows are less likely to break from the heat and cause a home to burn from within.

“When the fires hit L.A., it’s clear that nobody knew what was going to happen, which buildings were more likely to burn,” said Mahmoud.
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